Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Blondies

Blondies, blondies, blondies. My first consumption of a blondie was at my first serving job at Ruby Tuesday. On occasion, a server would mess up an order ("accidentally," of course) and the food would be considered "dead" and that meant that all the servers could secretly pull the dead food item aside and share with other co-workers. As servers, we would scarf that food down like vultures. It wouldn't happen often but when it did, it was glorious. It was in one of these moments, that I tasted my first blondie.

I found this great recipe from Annie's Eats (another culinary genius). I made the recipe my own but the great thing is you can add any candy and special treat to equal your mood.

What is a blondie exactly? According to wiki (don't tell my college professors), it is a brown sugar based dessert resembling it's bff, the chocolate brownie. In my simple terms, it is like a thicker cookie made in a cake form. And it's oh so delicious.

In fact, the first time I made these, I placed them in the oven, set an alarm on my phone and of course, someone called me. Since I was on the phone and my alarm didn't go off until I got off the phone, the blondies were in the oven a full 16 minutes over the time I was supposed to take them out. To my surprise, they were amazing! You can't go wrong with them. Here's a simple recipe (you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry now!).

Ingredients:
1/8 cup of butter (or margarine)
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I just found a recipe to make my own! So excited!)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
3/4 cup of chocolate chips
1/4 cup of peanut butter chips (yum!)
PAM

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Use PAM to grease an 8x8 inch pan or 9x12 glass pan. I used a 9x12 pan (the blondies will be thicker in an 8x8 inch pan... either way is tasty).
2. Heat butter in a mug (mug = easier handling) for about 30-45 seconds and allow to cool off for a few minutes.
3. Mix butter and brown sugar with a mixer in a medium bowl and beat until smooth.
4. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla.
5. Add in the flour, salt and baking powder and blend until smooth. Then add in your chocolate & peanut butter chips (you could add in M&M's, toffee chips, Reese's peanut butter cups, nuts, anything really) and mix by hand until evenly distributed.
6. Pour delicious batter in the greased pan and spread around. Cook for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Take out and let cool for a few minutes then cut into squares. These babies are so good and since they are so easy, you'll want to make them over and over again. You've been warned.